Tens of thousands of dollars were stolen from the cryptocurrency wallet of a popular Hollywood actor. How did this happen?
Popular Hollywood actor Bill Murray fell victim to hackers the day before. The fact is that an NFT-related token campaign about Murray’s life, the Etherium wallet, was the focus of fraudsters’ attention some time after the charity auction. The amount of loss reaches the 110 WETH mark, or $174,000 at the cryptocurrency’s exchange rate at the time of the hack. Details of the attack were shared by the actor’s partners at entertainment site The Chive and crypto startup Project Venkman. We tell you more about them.
As a reminder, Bill Murray is co-owner of Project Venkman and sponsor of The Chive. His cryptocurrency is overseen by partners from the aforementioned organisations, meaning the actor delegates his authority regarding the charity auction of his own NFT-collection.
Overall, the launch of the NFT collection “Bill Murray 1000” by Celebrity became known at the end of June 2022. It consists of a picture of Bill and a story from his life, all created by Murray himself. And it sounds like a great opportunity to get a piece of his idol’s activity for his fans.
Bill Murray’s NFT collection
How NFT tokens are stolen from celebrities
The theft came after a charity auction in which a one-of-a-kind unique token called “A Great Story”, meaning “the great story” was sold. The transaction took place on NFT platform Coinbase. The auction brought Murray’s partners 119.2 WETH, or about $185,000. All the funds were to go to charity, which means the actor wasn’t planning to make any money from the initiative.
Bill Murray’s “A Great Story” NFT token
Project Venkman crypto startup representative Gavin Gillas said in an exclusive interview with Decrypt that the first withdrawal transaction was the equivalent of 108.03 WETH. The balance of the stolen amount of 1.73 WETH or $2,750 was withdrawn in the next transaction. In total, the co-owners of the cryptocurrency recorded two unauthorized transfers.
Screenshot of the fraudsters’ transaction
Most interestingly, there are about 800 unique tokens left in Murray’s wallet, which are also to be sold in the future as part of his The Bill Murray 1000 project. These are generally drawings featuring portraits of the actor, backed up by interesting facts from his biography. In addition, NFT tokens from the CryptoPunks and VeeFriends collections remain on the wallet, as well as digital drawings by popular English artist Damien Hirst. All of them were not stolen by the hackers, but the tokens were moved to other cryptocurrency wallets shortly after the attack took place for security purposes.
Read also: OpenSea platform representatives reveal what will happen to NFT on Etherium after the network moves to Proof-of-Stake
The CEO of The Chive, John Resig, along with Gillas, made a statement about launching a police investigation into the incident that happened. They are also actively working with several analytics platforms, including popular crypto platform Chainalysis. Coinbase NFT representatives have also been put on notice and are assisting in the search for those responsible for the theft. Here’s their rejoinder.
We contacted Chainalysis within ten minutes of news of the attack last night. They can provide a greater account of what happened, their investigation is also ongoing.
Actor Bill Murray
There is no final report from analysts on the details of the hacking attack yet, but Gillas has shared his version with reporters. He is confident that the theft of the coins occurred after a malicious transaction was signed using Murray’s address. Usually, attackers disguise such transactions as issuing new NFTs or joining a cryptocurrency wallet to a particular site. However, signing a malicious transaction gives its creator much more power – for example, to transfer all funds from the victim’s crypto wallet.
Why it was necessary to sign a transaction in the case of a wallet that was only intended to sell NFT is unknown.
But there is one more interesting detail: one of Project Venkman employees declared earlier that crypto-wallet on his computer was also emptied by unknown malefactors. So it’s possible that hackers somehow managed to gain access to one of the computers associated with the crypto startup.
Bill Murray’s NFT auction was created to raise money for the charity initiative Chive Charities. The money was intended to help a three-year-old girl named Evelyn, who, according to Resig, suffers the effects of a rare CLDN5 gene mutation and intractable epilepsy. Here’s his quote.
Some miscreants stole money from Bill Murray’s wallet – money meant for a three-year-old girl with a life-threatening condition.
Page for Evelyn on GoFundMe
Although the ETH funds paid by the auction winner have been lost, fundraising for the child will not be affected. Anonymous under the nickname mishap72, who came second in the auction, donated 120 ETH to replace the stolen coins. If they can be recovered, they will also go to pay for Evelyn’s treatment. There is also a GoFundMe page for her, which has already raised more than 36,000 dollars in additional donations. Therefore the fundraising goal will not be affected in this situation.
We believe that this situation may scare away newcomers from the unique crypto-assets industry. Be that as it may, the money will be found, so there will be no problem with financing the treatment. Well, the creation of NFT collections by such popular people is also a good sign for the industry.
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